Focus on Strengths, Not Weaknesses

Many of us have had performance reviews that we’ve left feeling like we have a lot to improve on. While we can – and should – be constantly improving, I think our time would be better spent on building our strengths. If you’re too focused on fixing your weaknesses, you can become overwhelmed and discouraged.

Heather Mundell shares her thoughts on where the focus should be in her post Build Your Strengths Rather Than Fix Your Weaknesses. Heather talks about everyone having skills that don’t come so easily and suggests time be spent working on your strengths because doing this will “attract the people and opportunities you’re seeking.”

Let’s think about this for a minute. If we focus on things that we are good at, our confidence increases and we are more efficient. We’ll also have more interest and motivation. People will start to notice these things! We can achieve happiness and fulfillment by honing in on our strengths – who doesn’t want that?

Now, I’m not saying we should just pass over our weaknesses and not do anything about them. We should still find time to work on them but should limit it and not make it our primary focus. Building our strengths is a much more productive use of our time.

This doesn’t have to be just for us as individuals – this can be extended to your entire company! Encourage employees to work on their strengths, look for opportunities to praise them and steer them towards doing things they are good at. Efficiencies will increase and everyone will be happier.

We are not all good at everything but we all have a few things that we are great at. Let’s put our time and energy into those things – we’ll enjoy our jobs more and it will show.